Teen accused in Dillard shooting to remain in jail isolation

Tonya AlanezSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel

She's suicidal, mutilates herself and writes poems about how she longs for death, a defense attorney and psychologist said Thursday in a bid to have accused Dillard High School shooter Teah Wimberly, 15, transferred from jail to a psychiatric hospital.

"I see razor blades. I hear my pain screaming for help," forensic psychologist Trudy Block-Garfield told a Broward judge, quoting from the teen's poetry. "If I kill myself, it will cancel all the pain I have done."

Since her arrest in the Nov. 12 slaying of longtime friend and classmate Amanda Collette, 15, Wimberly has etched the words "I'm sorry" into her arm, Block-Garfield said. She said the girl's emotional state would inevitably deteriorate if she remains confined and isolated at the North Broward Jail in Pompano Beach.

Although she has been charged as an adult with second-degree murder, because of her age, Wimberly is being kept separate from the adults in the jail. That is where prosecutors want her to stay.

Saying he was uncomfortable moving the teen to a less secure setting, Circuit Judge John Murphy refused to transfer Wimberly to Fort Lauderdale Hospital. He did, however, agree to order evaluations by psychiatrists trained to treat adolescents.

Classmates have said Wimberly sought a romantic relationship with Collette, an aspiring dancer, but was rebuffed.

Upon hearing her verse recited in court, Wimberly doubled over, head to knees, and trembled.

When Wimberly was arrested, she had more than 90 self-inflicted cuts on her arms, defense attorney Larry S. Davis told the judge.

Such wounds are made as a way to numb emotional pain with physical pain, said Block-Garfield, who evaluated the teen on behalf of the defense.

The pyschologist said Wimberly's fragile mental state has been framed by childhood sexual molestation and abandonment by a mother who struggled with bipolar disorder and joined the military after her daughter was born, leaving her to be raised by paternal grandparents.

An overdose, a slit throat, suffocation, drinking bleach and playing in traffic are all means of death Wimberly has written about, Block-Garfield said.

Without a thorough psychiatric evaluation and subsequent treatment, "Sooner or later, she will find a way to die," she said.

Tonya Alanez can be reached at tealanez@SunSentinel.com or 954-356-4542.